


Linguistics

by Acadialights



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, I'm pretty sure that's their ship name or whatever, oh my this is so bad, there's implied kurokaga, this is mostly nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 03:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8474425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acadialights/pseuds/Acadialights
Summary: Kagami keeps slipping into English and Kuroko gets a (bad) idea





	

**Author's Note:**

> not yet edited

Kuroko had a problem. Well, okay, he had several problems but today one of them was an especially problematic problem. You see Kuroko loved to read and was very good at both modern and classic Japanese literature. Kagami, his best friend and basketball partner, was quite bad at both.

 

Having lived abroad awhile Kagami was excellent at English. But although he was adequately fluent in Japanese he tended to run into problems writing and reading it. Really, who could blame him? How was he supposed to remember like 12,000 kanji? (Okay it was more like 2,000 but did he care right now? Ha. No.)

 

This was where Kuroko’s problem came into play. It was common for him to help Kagami with his Japanese homework. Often Kagami would return the favor by helping Kuroko with his English. But Kagami understood Japanese and Kuroko did not understand English. Sure he could list of all your basic phrases, “hello how are you,” or “the weather is nice today,” but within seconds of conversation Kuroko would be lost. And Kuroko got lost A LOT.

 

He spent a lot of time with Kagami and Kagami spent a lot of time teasing him in English. There were also the times Kagami would forget what a certain word is, occasionally managing to forget both the Japanese and English but remember a different equivalent, which Kuroko assumed was Spanish, from the classes he took for a handful of years in America. He had lost count of the number of times his sentences became mangled messes.

 

“Yo do you want an orange or some… uh.. not いちご?” he would say to a friend or, “I’m looking for my, uh, the thing, you like open it, with all the pages not 本, the one for language arts?” Everyday items were easy to forget the names of. But back in Japan it would still happen. It wasn’t long before Kagami gained a habit of breaking off into English and mumbling to himself.

 

“何処は。。。what the hell is the word for pencil ughh… Wait! 鉛筆！” He would say, emphasizing the end more than strictly necessary. It was these situations that began to drive Kuroko crazy. He so desperately wanted to understand what it was that Kagami would mumble under his breath. Often Kuroko would catch words (usually profanities) but there was still so much he missed.

 

Now Kuroko, being Kuroko, neglected to bring the topic up around Kagami. But he had a plan. It would be incredibly difficult to catch up to Kagami’s English proficiency and much simpler to catch up in a different way. This brings us to Kuroko analyzing a textbook on a late saturday night. On the front printed in fancy roman letters it read _français._

  


A few months later Kuroko was ready to execute his plan. He might not have mastered French exactly but by now he knew a lot more than the average Japanese citizen had any business of knowing. He had already spent too many nights with various conjugations of _manger_ mixing with Japanese 食べる equivalents.

 

They were over at Kagami’s apartment when the plan fully came to fruition. Kuroko decided to start off casually with mumbles oh “oh, _la porte_ ,” as he came in or “ _merci_ ,” when he was handed food. Despite the numerous items he had slipped into conversation Kagami still hadn't seemed to react and honestly Kuroko was frustrated. Usually Kagami was far quicker to reveal his emotions than Kuroko was and for some reason he didn’t seem to even be surprised.

 

It wasn’t much later that Kuroko got a reaction, although not the one he had predicted. He had been muttering under his breath in French about how much of an idiot Kagami was when the oddest expression crossed his face. It was composed of excitement and offense and something else kuroko couldn’t quite identify.

 

“ _Tu parles français?”_ Kagami exclaimed. Well, screw everything, Kuroko thought. He would never win.

 

An hour later after a thorough discussion of how American schools required you to take a second language, Kuroko fully realized how fruitless his efforts had been. (and that he had no idea what the difference between Spanish and French was) But in the end even if Kuroko never accomplished his goal he ended up with an unexpected but wonderful surprise.

  
After all it was so much more fun to be able to talk to your partner when no one else could understand you.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I used French because I sorta know French and honestly this was just so I could complain about kanji memorization. I might have screwed some stuff up slightly but eh
> 
> Words I used:
> 
> いちご (strawberry)
> 
> 本 (book)
> 
> 何処は。。。 (where is...)
> 
> 鉛筆 (pencil)
> 
> 食べる (dictionary form of the verb "to eat")
> 
> manger (again "to eat")
> 
> français (French)
> 
> la porte (the door)
> 
> merci (thanks)
> 
> tu parles français? (you speak French?)


End file.
